


tolerating my own heart

by godmarked



Series: PROMPTOBER 2020 [3]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Sheik Replaces Zelda, Character Study, Gen, Identity Issues, Sheik (Legend of Zelda) is a Separate Character, Time Travel, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:00:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26786350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godmarked/pseuds/godmarked
Summary: The little princess can’t be more than eleven when she’s taught the prayer, ancient and terrifying and unholy. It’s more of a spell than anything, a call to something lost and ancient- to Sheik, the seventh sage. Master of an element no mortal creature should have right to be master of; born of too much of Nayru’s power and too little of Hylia’s. Sheik wants to feel bad for her, this small child, because she could be the queen of the universe and she still would be too young to understand the sacrifice she’s about to make.
Relationships: Impa & Sheik (Legend of Zelda), Link & Sheik (Legend of Zelda)
Series: PROMPTOBER 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945378
Kudos: 10





	tolerating my own heart

**Author's Note:**

> **prompt #03: you cannot change fate. however, you can rise to meet if, if you so choose.**   
>  _prompt from princess mononoke / title from virgina woolf's night and day_

Time is like water.

It flows when left alone, but when you toss something new and strange into its midst, it will ripple and change. Sheik is fairly sure they’re that  _ something strange _ that’s been tossed, an echo of a failed experiment where the Princess of Hyrule wasn’t what she was supposed to be. They’ve spent what feels like endless centuries waiting, hovering above the smooth, crystalline surface of the timeline and yearning to reach down and skim their fingers across the top. 

The little princess can’t be more than eleven when she’s taught the prayer, ancient and terrifying and unholy. It’s more of a spell than anything, a call to something lost and ancient- to Sheik, the seventh sage. Master of an element no mortal creature should have right to be master of; born of too much of Nayru’s power and too little of Hylia’s. Sheik wants to feel bad for her, this small child, because she could be the queen of the universe and she still would be too young to understand the sacrifice she’s about to make. 

Her teacher is a strong Sheikah woman who watches with a stiff upper lip and steel in her eyes. Sheik can’t help but hate her for letting the child-ruler do this, throwing away her life for the sake of a sage who wasn’t supposed to exist.

But there’s nothing they can do until they’re summoned, pulled into the great river of time and set free. There’s nothing that Sheik can do until it’s too late for Zelda, and they aren’t sure they’ll ever forgive themselves for it. 

**/**

“I’m to train you,” Impa tells Sheik as they pull themselves off of the cold marble flooring. Their hands are frail, childlike, and the shock of having any sort of physical form at all is enough to send them reeling. 

They don’t look like the girl-princess, not exactly. Something about the spell changed her- changed  _ them _ -into something entirely new. Dark-skinned and white-haired, Sheik catches a glimpse of their reflection in a window: cheeks round with youth, eyes a burning, simmering red. 

Impa clears her throat, impatient. Sheik does their best to not be upset by it, because from Impa’s perspective she just lost… a child, really. Her child, replaced by something inhuman like Sheik. “I’m to train you,” Impa repeats, voice hard. “Is that going to be a problem?” 

Sheik thinks,  _ yes _ . Sheik says, “no,” voice rough as they stand. This is the only mercy they have to offer while they wait to see how things unfold; a sort of obedience designed to not pour salt over what are clearly gaping wounds. “When do we start?” 

The look Impa gives them is clearly not loving, but Sheik hopes it is something like approval. 

**/**

Four years into their training, Sheik decides it’s time. 

Impa throws a knife at them, and they catch it before it finds its mark. They slide the blade into a waiting sleeve-sheath, and pull their mask up over their face. “I have to go,” they say solemnly, bowing. “Thank you for your instruction.” 

Straightening back up, they match Impa’s gaze without flinching. “Your training isn’t complete,” the woman says, scowling. 

Sheik shakes their head. “That isn’t up to you,” they say softly, crossing the room. They still have to reach up to cup Impa’s face, their body only fifteen years old still. “Zelda loved you,” Sheik says quietly. “In her last moments, she thought of you, and she asked me to be kind to you.” 

Impa flinches away from their grasp. “And what about you?” she asks. “What do you feel when you think of me?” 

Sheik steps back, head ducking to avoid the woman’s gaze. “Sorrow,” they reply, as honestly as they can. It’s the type of feeling that sits like lead in their stomach, reminding them at every turn that they will never be the child Impa lost. “I feel sorrow.” 

Before Impa can reply, Sheik pulls themself not into shadow as they’ve been taught, but into  _ time _ . They feel like a coward for it, but they couldn’t bear to see the look on Impa’s face. 

So instead, they sink into the familiar coolness of time itself, and they start to search for the right moment to reinsert themself. 

**/**

In the timestream, or what is better referred to as the space  _ in between _ time, Sheik meets a child. 

He has pointed Hylian ears and a face rounded by youth and innocent, large green eyes blinking up at her. He wears Kokiri garb, but clearly isn’t a child of the forest; the way that time pulls at him is unmistakable, singling him out as someone who ages. “Hello,” he greets, tilting his head back to look at them. “You’re very tall.” 

There is a mark on the back of his hand, three golden triangles. “Hello,” Sheik tells the Hero of Time, bending down to speak with him. “You’re who I’ve been looking for.” 

“Oh,” he says. “You’re sure it’s me? I don’t think we’ve met before…” he trails off for a moment, and then narrows his eyes. “If you’re looking for me, then what’s my name?” 

Sheik wants to say,  _ you’re the boy without a fairy _ . They want to say,  _ you’re the hero of time _ . They want to say,  _ it’s your fault a little girl killed herself to bring me here _ . But it  _ isn’t _ this boy’s fault, none of it is, and Sheik will not be thoughtlessly cruel to a child, no matter how large his role in fate may be. “You’re Link,” they say instead. 

The boy looks a bit put out by this. “I am,” he says. “But you know me, and I don’t know you! How is  _ that _ fair?” 

Sheik bites back a grin behind their mask. “You don’t know me  _ yet _ ,” they tell him. “You’ll meet me soon enough.” When Link blinks at them in confusion, they wink. Link tries to wink back, but only succeeds in blinking. Sheik laughs for the first time ever in their body, and it warms them all the way to their fingertips. 

“Is this a dream?” the boy asks, tilting his head to the side. “If it wasn’t a dream, Navi would be here, I think.” 

Sheik nods, even though it isn’t  _ technically  _ true. “You’ll wake up soon,” they promise, reaching forwards and carding their hand through Link’s hair. He leans into their touch, ears twitching. “And Navi will be right there waiting for you.” 

“Are you gonna be there?” Link asks, looking up at them. “You said we were gonna meet soon.” 

And Sheik thinks,  _ oh _ , because of course that’s where they come in. The triforce on their hand pulled them to this boy as surely as the current of time did, and Sheik knows they are little but a pawn in the grand scheme of things. “Of course I’ll be there,” they say, running their hand through Link’s hair one final time. “How could I not be?” 

As they turn to leave, they catch a glimpse of Link’s own personal timestream, and for a brief, horrifying moment, Sheik wants nothing more than to pull Link back into that dream with them. To kill him if only so he doesn’t face the horrors his future hold. 

But fate’s decree is not something Sheik can run from, so they sink back into the river of time and do their best not to mourn a boy who isn’t dead. 

**/**

Link saves the world. Sheik goes back to being a child, just as Link does, both trapped in bodies that aren’t theres. The spell is undone in part- Sheik is identical to Zelda in every way, their true form that of the Hylian Princess whose spirit is long-gone. This is not illusion magic done for the sake of saving the world, this is something wrong and poisonous; but when Impa assumes her beloved Zelda is back, Sheik does not correct her. 

They won’t be queen for several years yet, not with the king in good health and Ganon vanquished. Sheik thinks, half-desperately, that they will be able to spend their new childhood with Link, sneaking into gardens so laugh and play and find solace when the weight of their adult minds is too much for them. Sheik thinks, foolishly, that things will be easy, now. That they will be allowed to rest. 

“You remember?” Link asks when he sees them, with a voice that’s too old for the young pitch to it, wise beyond his years. 

“I do,” Sheik says, fists balling in the soft pink satin of their dress. “Link, I’m-!”

They almost tell him, but they’re cut off by skinny arms being thrown around them. “If you remember, then you know why I can’t stay,” he tells her, so different from the little boy in between time. “I’m sorry, Zelda.” 

And then he turns and takes off running, and Sheik feels their heart shatter in their chest. Grief lances through them like lightning, the words still hanging on the tip of their tongue-  _ I’m not Zelda, I’ve never been Zelda, please stay, I don’t know how to do this without you _ . 

They watch Link vanish beyond the castle walls, and Sheik cries. 

**/**

Eventually, Impa notices. 

“I know you aren’t her,” the Sheikah elder says, but it doesn’t quite sound like an accusation. “We went through with the spell, didn’t we?” 

“You did,” Sheik replies, and once more they’re fifteen and too-young still, body shifting again but not in the way they want. “She died.” 

Impa flinches at that, but it’s the only trace of emotion that crosses the Sheikah warrior’s face. Discipline is the first step to becoming a true Sheikah warrior, Sheik remembers, and it’s clear that Impa has it in spades; if she can look down at the person responsible for Zelda’s death and not do anything more than flinch. “Why are you still pretending to be her?” 

Sheik scoffs. “What are my other options?” they ask derisively. “Be out on my own in a child’s body? Be executed for impersonating the princess? This was the easiest option.” Their shoulders are hunched around their ears, hands fisted in the delicate silk of their dress. “Everyone wanted me to be Zelda, so I decided to be her.” 

_ You could go through time, _ a voice in their brain whispers.  _ Run away from it all _ . Sheik just clenches their fists tighter, scowling at the ground.

They won’t admit that they’re still waiting for Link to come back. 

Impa’s hands tighten into fists, but she doesn’t say anything. “Alright, then,” she says eventually. “Do you know where the hero went?” 

Sheik pushes themself to their feet and rolls their shoulders, refusing to look the older woman in the eye. “Away from here,” they snap, and then they storm out of the room, leaving the older woman looking helplessly after them. 

**/**

When Link finally does come back, they’re both grown.

There’s something war-torn and awful in Link’s eyes when they approach Sheik, having snuck past the guards and into the castle gardens. “Hello,” he says, in a voice that’s aching in it’s familiarity even now, after a second childhood spent away from him. Sheik remembers what they saw in his timeline, what he’s been through, and their heart aches in their chest, painfully human. 

“You’re back,” Sheik greets, stiff. The hero has broad shoulders and a scar that clips through his eyebrows, a permanently worried set to his lips. “You’ve been fighting,” Sheik observes, because it’s clear from the way he holds himself that their years apart have not been kind to him.

“And learning,” Link agrees, hand drifting up to touch the scar. “It’s good to see you, Sheik.” 

They still, eyeing Link warily. They still have golden hair and lovely blue eyes, the pale peach skin of the princess, not their Sheikah body that they so desperately miss. “It’s the way you stand,” Link says, and then frowns. “I mean… it’s more than that, but it’s hard to explain.” A rueful smile drifts across his face. “I’ve gotten good at recognizing people no matter what form they hold.” 

“And what have you learnt?” Sheik spits, hands balling into fists. “What did you learn, leaving me alone here to live a life that isn’t mine? Leaving me to be the only one who  _ knows _ what happened?” 

Sheik thinks, with vicious satisfaction, that Link looks ashamed of himself. “I learnt,” he whispers, and then clears his throat. “I learnt that you cannot change fate, Sheik, but you can rise up to me it if you choose.” He looks down at his feet. “I want- I want to know what it was like for you,” he says quietly. “I want to know what it’s like for you, having to be someone else. Having someone else-” he cuts himself off, hands flexing by his sides. “Having someone else understand.” 

And it hits Sheik, suddenly and without prelude, where they’ve seen Link’s expression before. What his behaviour reminds them of. 

“Oh,” Sheik says, looking at the man who is their mirror image- in a body that doesn’t fit right, in a time that’s not their own. They take a deep breath and reach out their hand. Link blinks at them, green eyes wide. 

“What are you doing?” Link asks, almost disbelievingly. 

“Rising to meet my destiny,” Sheik says honestly, still holding out their hand. “But I think you’ve got a lot to tell me, Link.” 

“Yeah,” Link says softly, as he finally takes their hand. “I think I do.” 

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like this one got a way from me just a touch!! and i did not like writing it but i did and here it is and i hope you enjoyed reading it
> 
> find me on [tumblr!](https://twitter.com/zackwritesstuff>twitter</a>%20and%20<a%20href=)


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